Tag: prison system

How Star Trek struggles to boldly go beyond the prison system, and four times it tried

Danika Drury • April 26, 2022

Kirk having his mind wiped in Dagger of the Mind

For a show that presents such an optimistic vision of the future, there sure are a lot of penal colonies in Star Trek. Abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore describes prisons as a “spatial solution to socio-economic problems” – that is, rather…

The Crew • September 21, 2020

Activist and lawyer Adrienne Smith joins us to talk about incarceration in Star Trek, from Dominion prison fight club to Rura Penthe. What are the messages in these scenes and how does the Federation’s own penal system stacks up against…